Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged Wednesday to resist the British government’s effort to gain access to digital users’ encrypted data through a proposed spying law.

The Associated Press reports:

Last week, Britain published a draft law that seeks to ensure that telecommunication companies “provide wider assistance to law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies in the interests of national security.”

That worries firms like Apple, whose iMessage service offers “end-to-end” encryption, meaning the company doesn’t have the ability to read messages sent over the app.

Cook told students at Trinity College Dublin that Apple didn’t plan to introduce a “back door” ability to decrypt the messages.

“We will productively work with the governments to try to convince them that’s also in their best interests in the national security sense,” he said.

The British bill, titled the Investigatory Powers Act, has yet to be approved by Parliament.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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